#dang i made an essay out of this

[canisalbus]

I hope this isn’t unwelcome but here are a few of my personal Vascete modern AU headcanons:

As a child, Vasco was usually voted as a team captain when playing sports with other kids. Not necessarily because of his sporting ability, but rather because of his leadership qualities and general agreeableness and ease with others.

Machete always uses perfect grammar when he texts, but can take a while to respond. Vasco often responds instantly but with less attention to grammar. Machete texts in unbroken paragraphs (when he has a lot to say) but Vasco’s texts come through in small, sporadic flurries.

Machete is very familiar with hospitals, particularly so in his childhood due to his various medical issues. As a result he actually finds their cleanliness, and the politeness of the doctors, comforting. These experiences also made him more patient than he might otherwise have been.

Vasco donates blood and is on an organ donor registry.

Machete always carries hand sanitiser around and is constantly offering it to Vasco, who always carries hand cream around, and is constantly offering it to Machete.

Both are well-versed in music and have refined musical tastes.

Vasco hums wholeheartedly whilst doing the dishes - a chore Machete likes to avoid where possible. Vasco knows this, so he pretends he doesn’t mind doing them.

Machete often has a headache and Vasco’s usual first response to this is to ask Machete if he’s had enough water today. He’s often right.

Vasco scarcely thinks of the other paths his life could have taken. Though he knows pain, he feels very fortunate for all the good he’s been dealt in life, and attributes his good luck mostly to happy accidents. Machete on the other hand has unexpected moments of stark awareness of all the possible forks in his road. It’s a sudden deja vu that creeps up on him when he’s alone, almost as if he can remember all of his and Vasco’s past/ potential lives together. The feeling vanishes just as soon as it arrives.

Hot dang anon I LOVE these. Unwelcome UNWELCOME? You come to my house and present me with thoughtful interpretations of my characters, I feel nourished.

I can definitely see Vasco being a popular choice for a team captain. He's physically active but not ultra sporty, and even though he can get excited and carried away, he's never been that competitive (he's got that 'I just hope both teams have fun' sort of vibe that people tend to like).

The texting bit is terribly cute. Vasco rapid firing message after message vs Machete intermittently slapping half an essay in the chat.

Machete is hypochondriac and his threshold for seeking threatment is low, especially if he's experiencing anything he's not already familiar with. To my understanding Italy has a good quality universal public healthcare, but he typically chooses to go with private sector anyway and has been investing in pricey health insurance for years (probably way more extensive than what is necessary or reasonable).

I also thought of Vasco as a habitual blood donor. He wouldn't like it per se (medical surroundings unnerve him), but I think he might just get a kick out of being a good boy and potentially helping people. (I know gay, bi and msm men used to be banned from donating (or at least severely restricted) but it looks like many countries have revised their criteria significantly in recent years and there's a good chance he'd be eligible these days.)

The hand sanitizer/hand cream combo is so good. It made me chuckle. (Are you a hand sanitizer person or a hand cream person?)

Their respective tastes in music and cinema have more overlap than you might initially think, and they keep aligning closer and closer over time.

Machete wouldn't like doing dishes. Having to touch wet food (weird texture + unhygienic) is bad times all around. But he genuinely enjoys a little bit of vacuuming, dusting, laundry and general tidying and organizing. He doesn't leave that much for Vasco to do, just the occasional visibly messy jobs that squick him out more than he cares to admit.

That's very considerate of him. That's a very considerate thing to do to anyone in general. Dehydration and low blood sugar can really sour your mood and you wouldn't even notice they were the reason you're feeling so bad all of a sudden. (When I'm having a difficult day I try to remember to ask myself whether things are truly collapsing or am I potentially just a little too thirsty and hungry and unaware of it. Usually it's the latter).

Ah yes, Machete and the horrors. Vasco might be aware of the horrors as well, but perhaps he possesses the specific kind of galaxy brain that is near immune to this particular flavor of existential dread.

[swan-lite]

Dang it, okay, I have thoughts

James Somerton made an apology video in which he says "I'm sorry" several times but

Couches it in a pity party

Does not directly address any of the people whose work he stole by name

Never uses the word "plagiarism," instead referring to his theft almost exclusively as "citation errors"

James discusses how many videos he and his team were releasing and the frequency of releases as if someone was pressuring them to release a high volume of videos, as if to say it isn't his fault that there were quality problems

James offers to make his videos public again and add "citations" in a pinned comment or in the descriptions as a means of crediting the people he stole from

He also insists that some of the videos won't need these citations because some of them were his own "original work"

(In other words: that he has nothing more to hide)

James states that he isn't bigoted against ace folks, bisexual folks, trans folks, or women and that the several disparaging remarks he has made against these communities in his videos were not written by him

Because we have receipts for several of these remarks thanks to Harry's (hbomberguy's) video on James, we know that they didn't come from the articles and books he was stealing from, so if James didn't write them then the only other person who could have was his cowriter Nick

James then immediately says that he's not trying to blame Nick

James does not try to explain the ace/arophobic, biphobic, transphobic, or misogynistic remarks he has made on his Twitter or Patreon accounts

James mentions - and seems genuinely bothered by - the "people online" who are spreading lies and misinformation about him

Finally, James discusses future projects he would like to work on

He then deleted the apology video

Harry states near the top of Plagiarism and You(Tube) that "When someone more competent than Filip uses [his] techniques in a subtler way, we can recognize them for what they are."

This is not competent. It's not even subtle. James's career was so thoroughly eviscerated literally overnight that this is the best he can do, and it's not even good.

James says that he's sorry, but doesn't actually explain what he's sorry for. He doesn't admit to, or take responsibility for, the extent of what he actually did. In this way, he can now say when confronted that he apologized. But with the wording, he still manages to avoid actually taking ownership of his actions. In other words, it's using passive language to imply that what he has done just happened. He definitely didn't sit down and choose to commit extensive plagiarism - of course not! What really happened? *shrug* Anyway, sorry for it.

When iiluminaughtii (henceforth referred to as Blaire) tried to explain the many times in her video essays she has misspoken or misused words, she played it off as a byproduct of the amount of "work" she churned out for her fans. James is trying to do the same thing here, only it is deeply ineffective. It's quite upsetting to me to think that some of his fans - young queer folks who are probably used to having to make themselves small - might on some level fall for this trick. The idea is to make you the viewer feel guilty for the demands you have placed on this creator, when in reality this is a grown adult who knew exactly what he was doing.

I'm not going to spend too long on this next point. If you've read this far, you're probably invested enough to be well aware that James has used the trick of burying a citation under a mound of text no-one will read many times. It's the same trick Blaire used, and the one The Internet Historian used as well after he was caught.

James stops short of making a "Colombo villian speech" in this apology video. He does, however, take the time to say that he has nothing more to hide. Again, if you've watched Harry's video, you know this literally always means that the person who insists they have nothing to hide is absolutely hiding something else. Whether this is more plagiarism or some other skullduggery we haven't yet found out about, I'm sure it will come to light eventually. I'm honestly surprised and a little disappointed that James tried this tack. Obviously he's thought better of it, since the video is gone now. But I would think a grown human who has just been the subject of an hours-long piece of, frankly, journalism would know better than to say something like this.

With the comments about his bigotry, James is trying to simultaneously redirect attention and perform allyship by saying "Look, I have an asexual friend! Who may or may not be public about his sexuality at this time!" This is the kind of thing I think a lot of us in the queer community are used to - supposed allies downplaying microaggressions by pointing to folks in the ally's proximity who happen to have an identity that they are being accused of speaking badly about. "This one person can stand to be around me, so clearly I can't be all bad." Personally, as someone whose racist parent tries consistently to downplay their own racism by pointing to me, their mixed race child, I can tell you that this is always misleading. In this case, I feel comfortable saying it's intentional. James tries to excuse the bigotry that "ended up in the videos" by saying that he didn't have time to edit the scripts properly. He doesn't seem to realize that time constraints often make people much more honest. In reality, this is James trying to make excuses for the bigotry he put in his videos because the time constraints he put onto himself made it much more difficult to disguise how he really feels.

James then directs some indignation at the people who are online discussing what he did. I would interpret his discussion of his income as an oblique reference to Dan Olson's thread about his recording equipment if I had a degree in literary analysis. My degree is not in literary analysis, so I'll leave it there. Ahem.

James makes reference to future projects he hopes to work on, as if this endeavor has in any way preserved or helped to bolster his shattered reputation. Jessie Gender makes a great point in saying this feels like a promise of work we could get out of him if we all just collectively decide to ignore all the harm he has caused. And James has caused harm. Whether he meant to or not, given the sheer magnitude of his plagiarism, there is absolutely no doubt that he has caused significant harm to a community he claimed to defend.

I want to spend a moment on something others have already pointed out. Actually, Harry pointed this out too. If James's theft were in any way defensible, he would have defended it. He would not have gone to such great lengths - up to and including deleting videos - to hide it. He wouldn't have used Nick as a shield, he wouldn't have outright lied in his livestreams, and he wouldn't have deactivated his Patreon (before reactivating--y'know what, this post is long enough, we don't need to get into that). James lied and dodged and beat around the bush for years BECAUSE he knew what he was doing was wrong. I had a justice studies professor once tell my class that nobody wakes up in the morning and decides to be A Criminal. People make choices, and choices have consequences, but most people don't choose consequences. People choose the thing that benefits them and consequences follow. James made a long, long series of choices, and I would like to remind everyone that they always had consequences. Even before Harry's video came out, James was facing consequences. Those didn't come from nowhere, they came from the people he was hurting. He knew about them, he just didn't stop because of them. He stopped because he literally couldn't keep going anymore.

Finally, James deleted his misguided response to the multitude of accusations against him. I don't think I need to explain to anyone what that indicates.

I would like to finish by saying that nobody should be harassed. Nobody should be bullied, or dogpiled, or doxxed. Nobody should wake up in the hospital because their dad realized he needed to call an ambulance. James's life is undoubtedly in a really difficult place right now, and while he absolutely deserved to lose his career, that's all he deserved. I hope he regains his health, I really do.

And I hope Harry and his team don't feel any responsibility over this. It seems easy from the outside to believe they wouldn't, but I also know that if I had just released a 4-hour long video detailing someone's fraud and then found out they had been in the hospital because of an incompleted suicide, I would feel pretty conflicted about a project we know Harry already felt conflicted about.

I hope Harry and his team are doing okay, and I hope James starts doing okay soon, and I hope James realizes this was the wrong damn time to try to release an apology. It was a bad apology.

[vsyrworld]

get to know my favorite driver's ship

this was made by me and for me and i wrote fanfic about them!!!

(fyi; i started watching f1 in 2015 so ofc you guys KNOW what my FIRST and ULTIMATE ship)

(older f1 ships: )

Brocedes :D (childhood friends, teammates, rivals, anything but a lover - crofty 2021)

OH COME ON. I will write an essay about their history. BUT ANYWAY, despite their toxic year in 2015/2016, I still adore how young nico and lewis friendship or whatever they had in Greece back then and I still keep this ship alive until the 2021 season. Their battle on the track was BEYOND TOXIC, yet their battle off the track (media drama) is HILLAARIOUS. How come Lewis accidentally spills out, the name that shouldn't be spoken for Half of DECADE. God both of them are dramas king. NICO PODCAST omg the talk with Alain prost and they compared his vs Senna battle with HIS AND Lewis's battle PLUS when Nico's storytelling his "friendship" history in ITALY at the SPONSOR EVENTS *CRIED* and lewis always mentioned how he loves ice cream and do cheating day in imola and monza BECAUSE IT WAS NICO WHO INTRODUCE THE FOOD THERE. ugh I hate and love them at the same time. (I do include some Seb/NICO too because I like see Lewis getting rilled up)

2. Kimi and Seb (I ADORE THIS A LOT)

my calm and serenity wise iconic ferrari couple. I feel like Kimi was the rock ice and water for Seb to prevent him from burnout because of ferrari. during 2017-2018, Seb pushed hard (same like Charles) and yet the car reliability fuck his championship standing. and kimi (--kimi was the last ferrari champion hiks) kimi just so attentive to seb and I genuinely like both of them being rebels to whole ferrari tradition (like they don't do rollercoaster thingy, they DON'T master Italian, they just become their self and being so comfortable in their own bubble, fuck world). I had noticed also Seb (and Gio) is the only teammate that can make Kimi laugh. I just super super adore them!

3. Maxiel (TRADITIONALSHIP! I REFUSE OTHER SHIP FOR MAX BESIDE DANIEL. I REFUSE!)

ugh should I explain them? THE CHAOTIC GAYEST ENERGY IN WHOLEEE 2016 GRIDS COME ON. I love how Daniel basically took young rookie Max under his arm and just had fun on and off the track with It? The biggest flop was when Max was just so hotheaded and they crashed in Baku. I thought their relationship gonna be stranded but GUESS WHAT? MAXIEL IS STILL ALIVE UNTIL NOW HELLO? and their relationship is so real not only for the camera but also out the camera. The other highlight moment is when Max is already 'too big' daniel really steps down from RBR because he knows, Max will outshine him, and he knows (what he learned from brocedes too) that it's better to go the other way.

(newer)

4. Dando (COMFORT SHIIP Not romantically also)

I thought daniel was max soulmate but LANDO excuse me? They can share daniel If they want. i just love how lando becomes so silly and blushes like school teenager around Daniel. i love how they INFLUENCE each other. I think because I feel nostalgic with them because they really similar with Maxiel in 2017 era, just one season before Daniel goes to renault, Maxiel was strained on thin paper. Dando other hands, well Daniel mostly, struggled in McLaren (with the papaya fans also still adore Carlos that time and refuse to let go him) plus Lando was shining bright just like Max 2016. Again, daniel he stepped OUT (this time). I guess, that similarity made me miss maxiel too.

5. last one C2 (Charlos) gosh, please!! ultimate!!!

loving and adoring them was expected though. It wasn't because they're both handsome (I already know Carlos was goofy ever since his Renault era so I never consider him as a handsome man) BUT DANG BOY, RED ON CARLOS WAS SOMETHING ELSE? RED ON CARLOS, BLACK ON CARLOS WAS SAKDAJSKDFHLKJSAFHKJAF.

-- okay back to the c2. It was a slow build okay? I realized that they are special during Carlos's first podium, Monaco 2021. Charles WAS LIKE ME. Blushing giggling, shy gazes toward Carlos. they are so endearing. Both of them are the victims of the Ferrari team. But I think they both understand each burden (Charles being the predestinated one, and Carlos had to prove his talent bcs he is a two times world champion son) plus, the way Ferrari screwed Charles in 2019. The team was cracked but with Carlos, I didn't expect this cursed team is heal :"D (Crying) and Charles become more relaxed, more enjoyed, even his coping mechanism is with laughter and Carlos just matches his energy. Idk , they gave me... a relationship through ups and downs.

and I realized there are so many people trying to pit them against each other, their fans are constantly arguing about who is the best and better driver, always dragging one of them down, but guess what is Carlos and Charles's response? it's completely differs from real life. They knew and fucking see it their fans tension. Carlos's anger to the Spanish media has already proven enough he had enough of these things. Charles also said in an interview that "what he saw about him and Carlos is nowhere true". they are the best PR relationship couple out there, but I also can see a genuine, how they know each other so weell. How Charles kept the football game updated just because of Carlos, how Carlos knows his favorite food, how they had their own internal jokes,

they are both soo lowkey on the camera during and outside the race. and I think that Is why people never hype them like carlando or everyone's favorite childhood rival to lovers lesttapen. And I thought they didn't really hang out with each other that much but WHAT WAS THAT SUMMER BREAK? HUH? YOU IN MALORCA AND WENT TO SOUTHERN FRENCH? What were the matching Instagram feeds color and aesthetic at New York? WHAT WAS THE THING ABOUT PASTA CARBONARA UN LUNGA NON PENNE? WHAT WAS THAT THING CHARLES SLEPT ON THE FLOOR just to accompany Carlos watching World Cup? The dolomites? The Sardinia?

there are soo many thing that they keep it so low-profile and under camera, and yet their conversation is so domestic.

[jewish-vents]

The encampment at my uni has an instagram page where they're consistently referring to Israel as the "violent Zionist entity" or "occupying Zionist entity" and... I'm tired. I don't like how Israel has been handling things. I want the violence to come to an end. I think that they and I probably have a lot of common ground, when it comes to our opinions on how the civilian population of Gaza should be treated--and that should be their primary concern, shouldn't it? That should be the core they build their movement around, you'd think.

And yet. And yet. They say "antizionism is not antisemitism" as if the two could never coincide (though I do agree they are not synonyms) and "[we] fight against antisemitism when bigots and grifters attempt to infiltrate our movements" (that's in the first public draft of their guidelines, they ditched the fighting antisemitism part for the newest one lmaoooooo) as if it has never even crossed their minds that they themselves might be antisemitic? That the antisemitism in the movement might come from within, no bad-faith actors needed?

But then they "demand that the University ... cut all academic ties with Israeli universities and Zionist academics" and "acknowledge the reality that media and Zionists will try to identify [encampment participants]" while also saying that "oppressive behaviour and stereotypes are not welcome"--well, which is it? is it bad to stereotype people for the purpose of limiting and/or excluding them, or is it acceptable to assume that every single Israeli student and professor is an evil scheming (((zionist))) and therefore they must be excluded?

I understand why they want the university to divest itself from weapons manufacturing and such (though tbh the links they've cited are fairly tenuous) but the total stonewalling of an entire country's academia just really rubs me the wrong way even without taking the singling out of Israel into consideration. You'd think, if they were so concerned about Israel being an insular ethnostate, they would want Israeli students to come here and see a different way the world can be! And yet!

Like I said--I'm tired. I wish this movement was one that I felt comfortable supporting. I wish their tactics aligned better with their stated goals. I wish they would be more self-aware, and that they would be better activists. Antisemitism doesn't help the people of Gaza. It just drives potential allies away.

(also--and this is not quite as much a vent as the rest of it--they call the university hypocritical for not saying anything about Palestine when they do have local land acknowledgements. Assume their framework holds. They put up a self-flagellating instagram post about how they felt they desperately needed to set up their encampment, and quickly, and so they did not have time to consult local indigenous groups before doing so. Now, I don't really think that setting up a rule-breaking encampment on university grounds under the current governance structure should require you to ask special permission--it's not like they asked the uni anyway lol--but they clearly do. They clearly feel it is not right for them to exist on these lands in the manner in which they do... but they're still here. They still made the encampment. They're colonizers, and they remain in the colony. One might think that this would give them some insight into reasons that an alleged colonizer population might be disinclined to leave--but of course, it's different for them. They acknowledge their own hypocrisy and continue on, having gained absolutely no insight--at least not any they're willing to share with the world.)

.....dang, sorry for the essay lmao. that got a bit out of hand. I'll wrap it up here so I don't go yammering on all night XD

.

[marciaillust]

Hi!! This has probably already been asked but I can’t find anything on it. Do you have any plans to continue with the clockmaster?? I really enjoyed reading it and would love to see more of it if you’re wanting to do anything more with it!! No worries if not though, I just thought it was really funky and it made my brain happy :))

Hi!

Yes, The Clockmaster is absolutely gonna continue!

The reason I stopped making The Clockmaster is a series of events, the major one being that 3 years ago I suffered an arm injury that came with 24/7 chronic pain, which really took a toll on me and my relationship with drawing. For a period of time I couldn't create and after that drawing anything came with soul destroying pain which made it impossible to create new pages on a weekly basis. I am still dealing with it but after 3 years of physio and what not I am doing better than ever, and as you might have seen I'm even making comics again :)

I know the comic's been gone for quite some time but I have not lost any interest in making it. More than that, during my break I learned a lot about storytelling, making comics, making my process more efficient among many other things, so I'd like to think when TCM comes back it will be a delightful read haha! I hope the two bigass doujinshis I created during the break stand as a proof of that!

However, when it comes back The Clockmaster will definitely be released in a new format - I don't think I will be doing weekly updates anymore, I will be releasing it in chapters. Longer breaks, but each update will be a nice lengthy read. The main reason for that is that having created two whole comic books during my time away I learned I find it so much easier, more enjoyable and preferable to create and finish comics in their entirety prior to anyone seeing them. I think the doujinshis have much better pacing, the economy of storytelling comes into play big time, and the emotional buildups and payoffs land way better. I want that for The Clockmaster! I want it to be excellent! I want to see the whole dang forest and not just the trees :)

However, to be completely honest, the earliest Clockmaster will come back is winter 2024. The reason for that is so far my schedule is looking positively packed for the upcoming months. Firstly, I want to conclude the 2nd asoryuu doujinshi extravaganza and I predict the last orders will be sent out in March. After that I will be moving between countries. I don't want to disclose too much info about my private life but many things will change for me and things will be hectic at least until August if not September 2024. As I said, I want to release The Clockmaster in bigger chunks now, so the chunk will have to be drawn. That will take months. But it's coming back! Meet me here same time next year and Orion, Rosie and Garret will be right there with me!!

Lasty, to conclude this essay of an answer: Thank you for saying you enjoyed reading it. The Clockmaster is something very dear to my heart and even though I am creating it for myself there is this worrying voice at the back of my head that when it comes back noone will care, that it's been 3 years and everyone forgot, and that it's not fandom stuff so noone will give it the time of the day. But hearing you say you enjoyed reading it makes me feel that art is timeless in its ability to make people feel something and that I am capable of creating of art that does just that :)

[sylvan-librarian]

Nissa's Pilgrimage Part I: Worldwaker

Preface: 

Hi there! My name is Steven; I recently wrapped up a master’s degree in library science and am doing my best to segue careers. Since my terminally long job hunt has left me with more down time than I ever wanted to have, I decided to put my English degree to good(?🤷) use by writing a bunch of personal essays on Magic the Gathering, as it is a topic I have been obsessed with for around a decade now. I didn’t intend to share these ramblings at first, and I began this whole project for my own edification, to keep my brain active, and to prevent myself going insane from boredom. However, I thought it couldn’t hurt to throw these online and see what comes of it.

This particular piece is part 1 of ???. I have a lot of notes in my drafts and even more thoughts in my head, so it may just go on indefinitely until someone (finally) gives me a dang job.

TLDR: I’m a deranged MTG Vorthos and former English major with a lot of thoughts and even more time on my hands, so I began a handful of English major-y essays on my pet topics. I’m posting them here for now.

Introduction:

Almost every Magic player who began learning the game after the planeswalker card type was introduced in the Lorwyn expansion in October, 2007 can tell you a story about the first planeswalker card they fell in love with. It might have been because the mechanics on the card melded perfectly with their preferred strategy of play, it might have been because they kept up with the story and were invested in the represented character’s journey, or it might have simply been because they thought the art looked cool.

For whatever reason under Mirrodin’s five suns a Magic player first became attached to a planeswalker and their cards, the character often become symbolic for our love of the game itself. These symbols grow beyond simple loyalty abilities on a piece of cardboard and become inexorably intertwined with our own personal Magic experience.

For me, this planeswalker was Nissa Revane.

You see, in March of 2014, I started working at The Game Closet in Waco, Texas. I had just finished getting a master’s degree in English, so of course, my first job out in the real world was to become a clerk at my local game store (really putting my humanities education to work). Having grown up in a small Louisiana town, I never had a chance to play Magic. I entered the tabletop gaming world through my obsession with Dungeons & Dragons, Shadowrun, and sundry other RPG’s. 

Nevertheless, as Magic players made up the majority of the store’s customer base, I took it upon myself to learn the game. The Theros block was wrapping up at the time with its third set, Journey into Nyx, and a bunch of friendly players were more than happy to unload all of their bulk commons and uncommons to me (Journey into Nyx was famously underpowered, after all), so I tried to make a standard deck out of all this draft chaff and run it at Friday Night Magic. 

It didn’t go too well.

However, I was happy with the overall direction of the deck, and I immediately discovered that I loved green decks, specifically green ramp strategies.

I was enthralled with the idea of accelerating mana so that you can play flashy, intimidating creatures and cool, game warping spells far earlier than you have any right to, so I continued to tweak the deck until I made a functioning version of the Theros Standard Mono Green Devotion deck. Even though I wasn’t good enough at the game in my early days to consistently win (even at the local level), I had a lot of fun with it! It was fast and explosive, but for some reason, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was missing something.

However, not a few months later, the Magic 2015 Core Set gets released, and the chase mythic rare in the set’s early days was exactly the kind of card I was looking for: Nissa, Worldwaker. I had no idea who this Nissa character was supposed to be — though I did think the art looked pretty cool — but I was in awe of the card’s abilities! It was precisely the kind of fuel I felt my standard deck needed at the time, and it turns out I was right! My Magic the Gathering “competitive” “career” begins and ends with a handful of first place rankings at my local game store’s standard FNM events, but as small a victory as those are, nearly all of these top rankings were due to Nissa, Worldwaker. 

Needless to say, I became devoted to the character overnight.

Exploration:

But who is Nissa, really? Let’s start with the basics. Nissa is an elf planeswalker from the plane of Zendikar, a largely untamed wilderness where the land itself has a will of its own, causing unforeseeable (un)natural disasters called “the roil” by Zendikari locals. According to the recently-released Magic The Gathering: The Visual Guide by Jay Annelli, Nissa is in her 60s and she is 5 feet, 2 inches tall, making her the smallest of the original four members of the Gatewatch (five if you count Liliana). Nissa has a mystical connection to the land and can sense a plane’s leylines, giving her a measure of control over the ground she walks on; this allows her to animate the very land itself to fight her enemies, a narrative element that has been expressed mechanically time and time again on Nissa’s cards throughout the years. 

Ostracized from the elven clan she was born in, the Joraga, for the crime of having this connection to the land (a rare brand of sorcery called “animism” in the lore of Magic), Nissa spent large stretches of years alone with only the spirits of the natural world as companions. This has made her socially awkward to a fault, and the issues she has in communicating with her friends (and later, lovers) has been a fairly consistent plot point throughout all of the (canon) story arcs she has played a part in. 

In a fictional universe that contains ageless elder dragons, a man-eating toad, a sentient robot who literally created a planet from scratch, and a wizard who once phased an entire continent out of the time stream, Nissa Revane’s eternal struggle to express simple feelings to people she shares a bond with always seemed to me the most human element in the Magic canon. Additionally (big surprise), that’s something I have in common with her. While other Vorthoses have made the argument that Nissa is on the autism spectrum, that is something I have neither the personal experience with nor the education of to speak about. That is certainly a valid lens to view this character through, however, so if that interests you, I’d encourage you to search up these pieces on your own.

What I can speak on with a certain level of expertise, however, is the personal struggle of being a shy, withdrawn introvert in an extroverted world. As a lifelong wallflower with a vivid imagination and a rich inner world, I can deeply relate to a character who doesn’t know how to put her intense feelings to words. For example, in the final story of the Kaladesh arc, Renewal, Nissa tries to express to her companion Chandra just how deeply she wants to be “friends” with her:

Nissa swallowed past the desert in her throat. "I don't speak often. I lived alone for...decades. Zendikar was my companion. We understood each other at a level deeper than words. I...I don't know how to talk to you. I'm trying to learn." Chandra looked up, eyes wide and startled. "You don't know how to talk to me?" "I will make mistakes," Nissa said. "Pick the wrong words. Misunderstand yours. I'll act strange and won't know that I am. But if you can be patient with me, I would like to be..." Waves of sky-song memory welled upward, symphonies of color and warmth, resonant movement and shared breath. She stilled them, reduced them, and forced out angular words shaped in a pallid shadow of acceptable truth. "...your friend." Chandra's hands leapt out to enfold hers, warm as a bird's nest. "I dunno," she sniffled, one corner of her mouth quivering upward. "I think you're pretty good at picking words." "It took all afternoon to decide how to say this."

While this section of Renewal is a cornerstone of Nissa’s and Chandra’s future romantic relationship, that is a topic big enough to warrant its own essay in order to do it justice. For now, though, let’s focus on this bit: “‘I would like to be…’ Waves of sky-song memory welled upward, symphonies of color and warmth, resonant movement and shared breath. She stilled them, reduced them, and forced out angular words shaped in a pallid shadow of acceptable truth. ‘...your friend.’” Nissa’s never ending struggle to use words grand enough to communicate the intensity of the feelings in her heart has stuck with me since Renewal was posted on Magic’s website in 2017. I doubt I’m the only one, either.

Heroic Intervention

Nissa was already the character I was most invested in back in 2017, but observing her deep well of emotions she didn’t know to express and her entire lifetime's worth of interests and experiences she didn’t know how to talk about helped me, I think, come to terms the previous two-and-a-half decades of my own life that I spent cowering in corners at parties, being as unobtrusive as possible in the lives of my friends and family, and holding myself back because I didn’t think anyone would ever want me around - as a friend, as a lover, or even as a coworker. This section, from later on in Renewal, really gutted me at the time: 

What would she do, if she had the time again? If she didn't flinch at light, noise, and touch, or speak in gestures and movements strange and off-putting to others? How could she tell this new life to laugh and weep without reservation or regret; to sing to the stars and waters, or to nothing at all; to love unreserved and unguarded; to treasure every moment with those beloved; to forgive any regretted trespass; to dance when moved to; to savor long silences in warm company; to greet each dawn, each face with the thought, this will be an adventure; to be brave, and kind, and trusting, and... ...like Chandra. The aetherborn waited, flickering. But why would anyone find her thoughts on the matter of value, anyway? Don't be afraid to follow your heart, Nissa told them. ...Why would that be scary? Halfway across Ghirapur, her body exhaled a laugh into the deepening twilight. May it ever puzzle you.

It wasn’t too long after this story was published that I began my own journey from hiding in the shadows to living my life in a way I was proud of. I moved away with the woman I was dating at the time, and even though that relationship ended up not working out, I spent five long, fun, life-altering years learning to

laugh and weep without reservation or regret; to sing to the stars and waters, or to nothing at all; to love unreserved and unguarded; to treasure every moment with those beloved; to forgive any regretted trespass; to dance when moved to; to savor long silences in warm company; to greet each dawn, each face with the thought, this will be an adventure.

I wonder to this day if the courage Nissa displayed during her own pilgrimage helped nurture in me the courage I needed in my own…

Conclusion

If you made this far, thanks! I’m not sure who, if any, will be interested in these endless ramblings, but if you're here, I hope you found something in it to enjoy!

Further entries in this little series will cover who Nissa is as a character, how she has been treated by various writers in Magic's various seasons, and why that matters (to me at least). The next longform piece I post will go over Nissa’s dual origins, why she was retconned from an incompetent xenophobe into the cinnamon roll with baggage we know today, and what both the Magic Story Team and its fans have made of this shift over the years.

References

Annelli, J. Magic The Gathering The Visual Guide. DK Publishing

Li, M., Digges, K., Luhrs, A., Beyer D., & L'Etoile, C. (2017). Renewal

[22degreehalo]

Something I find kind of frustrating in discussions of female characters is whole ardently a lot of people will commit to the, like, aesthetic? of wanting bad/messy/unjustified female characters. All 'I support women's wrongs <3' and dunking on people who can't 'handle' a woman who does one thing wrong ever and the like

But then, when they actually start talking about their favourite female character. they DO, in fact, think that everything they did was okay and justified. Like, yes, they admit that they were violent or lashed out, but then they'll write essays about how it was a totally normal and justified traumatic response and everyone in-universe and out should forgive them and how the male characters she hurt were actually the ones who did wrong first so she was just fighting against the patriarchal dystopia she lives in etc. etc.

and I just. do not think that that is actually the same thing!!!!!

For an example: Ashley The Coffin Of Andy And Leyley Graves. Since joining the fandom I've been continually startled by just how MANY people will assert, with vehement assurance, that Andrew is 'just as bad as Ashley', often with the explicit or implicit judgement that anyone who thinks otherwise is biased against women.

And... I actually do think I disagree!!!!! Insofar as 'good person' is a quantifiable thing, it's made pretty dang clear in the flashback that Andrew has a level of conscience that, back then at least, Ashley truly did not show. She actively wanted to hurt Nina, even if not kill her outright, and was much less upset when it ultimately happened. She's also the initiator of almost all the fucked-up stuff that happens in canon: the cannibalism, the cold-blooded murder, and even the incest.

And that's fucking awesome!!! Ashley is the driving force behind the narrative: the proactive, game-changing one, the one who's running the show for the two of them. By contrast, Andrew's involvement is almost entirely either passive or reactive; even when he does, for example, kill the other guard, you could argue that Ashley was the true motivator behind it, given that she's the reason they ended up in that situation in the first place AND she's the one who chose that hiding place. He just saw that her life was in danger and pulled a trigger.

That's a role that is almost always given to female characters: the guilt-ridden ones, the conscience, the passive enablers. Men are the ones who Act; women, usually, simply Are, exerting influence on the story merely by affecting those around them.

Ashley is, in my view, a worse person than Andrew: because it certainly seems that she would have had the level of conscience that she has even without an Andrew to manipulate, while Andrew would WITH CERTAINTY not have done even half the shit he pulls in the game if not for Ashley.

And that's why she's such a great female character. Because she's not just reacting to the patriarchy and exhibiting some inherently female reasonableness or moral ethics. She is the reason why the story is happening as it is - not because men are driven to act on her behalf, but because of her own personal fucked-up choices and quasi-intentional manipulation.

She has, in short, the vast majority of the agency of the story. And she uses it to be selfish and fucked up (evil) and fucked up (traumatised) and weird and goofy and vicious and incredibly fucking fun to watch, and I for one think that's fucking awesome.

[psyf0rk]

im curious about the fandom video essay one bc for me, ive always viewed it as: aa gets ports. like a lot of them. as such, aa is way more accessible to play compared to layton, where youre either stuck with watching an old playthrough of the games, or trying to 1) get a 3ds if you dont have one, and 2) buying the games (which can sometimes be very expensive). plus, people probably vibe with the mystery solving aspect of one or the other differently. i’ve honestly been begging for pl ports for years, and not just for switch. but i think layton is definitely something thats like. a series that ppl look fondly back on. which is why you see so many people be excited when new world of steam was first announced.

anyway sorry for putting all this in your inbox it’s just been my biggest complaint for yrs that layton has not been ported over yet and the one game thats on switch kinda did poorly. i would love for the fandom to grow

HII !! firstly thank you so much for asking !! im really glad to know this sorta thing doesnt just bug me ,, and secondly i apologise for answering so late ,, i was travelling all day yesterday 😭😭

YEAH!! Ports was going to be one of my points that id put in the video if i were to make it ,,

I completely agree with your point , Ive already heard people say the 3ds is a “dead console” (and yeah it is i just cant accept it ) ((LMAO)) ,, making it inaccessible to SO many people ,, when they could have found out about it . Like , layton still has the potential to bring in new fans , Im an example of that ,, lost future captured my heart and bought every game like a week later ; The games themselves are masterpeices , and more people deserve to know about them.

Secondly yeah ,I know people may be used to the mystery solving aspect of one or the other ,, but thats another problem anyway I think the main glue that layton has is its story tbh (less so with prequel trilogy but thats another point )

They could port the first trilogy really nicely (like they did with aa1-3) and brand it as a mystery game could THE POTENTIAL IS THERE. !!!!. And id people probably dont look back on it fondly im so sad :( Theyre amazing games but idk i didnt play them in layton prime 😭😭🙏

Also ports not just for switch YES !!! Reiterating what you said ; Theyre only playable on decaying consoles , and the gaming industry is changing , level 5 should adapt to this and not stay stuck in the past !! If people stumble across layton and decide to look into it ,, it would be better for it just to be at least on steam r smth ,, so they can acc play it cause playthroughs are awful . Like can you imagine curious village with polished sprites ??? dude that would be so good .

And yeah !! lets hope NWOS revives layton ,, from what is seems it looks really polished but they were 3 games late to what AA did well ,, give a new protagonist focus . NWOS (from what ive seen) will center more around luke ,, which is what the prequel trilogy should have done . (AA made their second trilogy center around apollo, )

and dang it i rambled slighty off topic mb

😭😭

[funarisjournal]

Confession Talk! Manga Edition 1

So, I've had a LOT of thoughts about the confession chapter in Vol 4. If you have only been reading the manga and don't want spoilers, don't worry! I'll hide my thoughts behind a cut.

The drama really spoiled us, heh (I mean, S2 is basically Volumes 3-parts of 5). But even then, there are still many differences. I think its okay to make essays, dang it!

Anyway, yes, let's look at this from Kasuga's point of view first, shall we?

So, Kasuga came into this Valentine's meet prepared with an announcement. We learned ahead of time she wants to move out thanks to her family situation. This is a pretty big announcement, so it's understandable why Kasuga was constantly nervous during the first Valentine's chapter. She was afraid of this being The Last Time, basically

In the 2nd part, it was nerve-wracking for Kasuga to tell someone whose relationship REALLY mattered to her that she was done with her own family, in a culture where it's revered (she could trust Nagumo because she's in a similar boat, though you could see the slight differences in the idea via Nagumo's thoughts). Thankfully, Nomoto was on her side and that's a huge wave of relief.

But then Nomoto tosses in something Kasuga wasn't actually prepared for! Really!

WOAH, what a blast from nowhere!! (in Kasuga's POV)

...Going back to her talk with Nagumo, I think Kasuga was prepping herself for a one-sided relationship. The most important thing to her was that she was with someone she could trust, a new family forged. If something were to become more than that, it would be a wonderful bonus.

She came in ready to tell Nomoto about her plan and to see if she would like to room in with her. Like, this is what she was implying when she finally got it out. This WAS her plan. If Nomoto said no, I'm sure she would ask to keep in touch, at least (and maybe continue their relationship that way)...though it would hurt, I'm sure of that.

Kasuga kind of announced it awkwardly, to be honest. Her simply announcing the move without the 2nd part attached immediately definitely didn't help matters, BUT that was the push Nomoto needed to finally say something before she (thinks she) loses the new friend she made in a long time - the woman she fell in love with.

The art direction for the moment Nomoto confessed REALLY struck me hard. I LOVE these two pages SO MUCH. This was one of the few times I related with Kasuga instead of Nomoto! This momentary stopping of time that brings back the deepest desire back to the front of your mind....realizing it IS mutual, it IS possible...! Yeah! I know that feeling, girl. Oh, it's really wonderful but breath-stopping because there's still a bit of you thinking "It was never going to be..." and it getting hit with a brick that says "SHUT UP IT, IS SO HAPPENING!!"

But then, finally, everything calms down for Kasuga. Things are certain and assured again in her life. The anxieties she had coming into Nomoto's that night have washed away.

And she can move on and help her friend, her love, her family, ease back down to earth as well. Kind of. Lol

[apompkwrites]

I'll be honest, at this point there are so many different au's of the black sheep that I just gave up on keep up with all of them I'M SORRY

BUT I also just had this fantasticly amazing ideia (that I think I haven't seen yet?) for an older sibling!draconia who is several years older than Malleus and who aided Lilia in raising the little prince

(tw to romance, heartbreak and a long asf essay with extremely rushed and underexplained angst, also many spelling and grammar mistakes probably)

Older sibling!Draconia who technically grew up with Lilia, learning with him everything know

Imagine older!draconia training with lilia and the other trainees (is that the term?) because they're the next in line! they king/queen/regent has to know how to defend themselves if needed!

And during their boring theorical classes, were they've been stuck in a room with some old lady rambling on about how oh so amazing the heir to the throne (them, older!draconia) is instead of the history of their lands (that they may or may not already know like the back of their hand —in their defense they had a lot of free time once upon a time, no friends and the royal library has a whole lot of books) for the past 3 hours

And then suddenly they look at the window and boom! there is Lilia and some other 2 friends they made during their training and outside classes, all of them making really funny faces that make older!draconia want to laugh their soul off, but they can't! they're in front of a teacher and they have to show some respect! oh dang it the lady thinks they're laughing at her so she just decided to end the class, what a shame

Now the 4 teens (however many years that is in fae logic) are running into the forest for a little break with the lovely animals and everyone's having a great time

And yeah sure everything's fine everything's great royal teenage life blah blah blah falling in love with your best friend Lilia and having a secret relationship bc you're still a royal who has an arranged marriage to come blah blah blah you have a little brother now!!!!! and he's a cute little round egg!!!!!! awsome!!!!!

But OMG!!! wait!!! There's a war coming!! Quick get your armour, sowrd and shield and go help the generals with strategies!!! Oh Great Sevens finally!! the war is over and you're victorious!!!! but then again you have a whole lot of newly downloaded trauma, you're now parentless and friendless (they're all dead yay!!!) and apparently the elders are putting you in for marriage??? right after you lost your parents and your friends???? oh but wait your amazing and loving (is she? she is here) grandma is fighting for your freedoom

Oh oops too late tho!!! it became too much and now you're running away from your home (???) after the first next few decades, leaving behind only a bunch of letters, cold sheets, a heartbroken lover, little brother and grandma and a huge mess

But of course older!draconia wouldn't leave them just like that, they just go and pull a Maleficent (Live Action), they keep taking care of their family from the shadows

Making sure little Malleus doesn't die because of how reckless and careless Lilila still is with simple and domestic chores bc he trained all his life to go to war and doesn't know how to wash the dishes

Doing their best to comfort Lilia duting those nights full of nightmares and tears, sending a gentle breeze and some cute little birds his way

Making sure that their grandma isn't tiring herself out by pulling constant all nighters (faes also need to get some rest from time to time grandma!) by blowing out the candles with some cold breeze form outside, so that way Maleficia would get tired of having to always be lighting up the candles again and just go to her room because when did it get so cold in here?

Of course she knows it is her oldest grandkid, this is far from being something natural and who else would have the guts to do that?

Overtime Malleus starts to gradually forget more and more about his older sibling who he loved and loves so dearly, something that pains him and everyone around him that knew them, mainly Maleficia and Lilia

A few thousand years later Lilia also finds a baby somewhere and he still doesn't know how to take care of a child properly what the hell Vanrouge if you're gonna take a kid in at least know what you're doing- no stop it (older!draconia) leave me alone

And because Lilia still doesn't know how to take care of a baby, and because he still has royal duties with the Queen and Malleus, of course older!draconia goes and does their best to help as much as they can without being noticed

And of course Lilia knows they've been helping him, he has known for the Sevens know how long, he can still feel their presence in the gentle breezes that caress his cheeks and hair every other night, ca still feel their loving and longing stares, looks and glances on the back of his head everytime he turns his back

He just doesn't get why they don't just come out and show themselves, it's so obvious they're the ones who've been around this whole time, hiding in the shadows and in the deeppest parts of the woods, being the origins of the many tales, miths and legends the smaller towns have, giving life to the little things thrpughput the whole forest, helping however they could while still doing their best to hide away from the cruel world they live in

At least for him it's obvious, but it is also sad

It's sad to watch as Malleus breaksdown every other night because he's progressively forgeting about his beloved older sibling as time goes on and Lilia I don't want to forget about them

It's sad to see the way the Queen's lingering gazes on some places, like the library, the one tree they always used to take naps on top of, or the hallway where their old room used to be; to see the way she sighs as if she just lost way too many years of life with just a glance at an otherwise regular tree

It's sad to see himself on the mirror, to watch and remember and relish in everything they once had, in everything they could've had; it's sad to feel himself yearn for someone who's doing their damned best to stay hidden, because there's no way they will come put just like that; it's sad to remember all the times he wished to any and every god out there to allow him to turn back time so the he could get one chance, only one more chance to make things right and to make them want to stay and to help them, that was all Lilia wished for most nights, but alas, it never worked

But what was even sadder was watching people come and go, even more so the palaces' servants; it was sad and upsetting, watching all these people that watched him grow up, that watched them grow up, that raised all of them and that knew every kid there like the back of their hand go and be replaced with new people, people who didn't know anything, who were there only because

But Lilia does his best; he does his best to raise Malleus right, even if sometimes he needs their help

He does his best to ease the Queens' burdens while being a mere servant and caretaker, even if sometimes he need their help

He does his best to keep his stress, nerves, anxieties and nightmares at bay, even if sometimes he needs their help

And he does his best to be the best father figure he could just for Silver, even if sometimes he needs their help

Even if Silver reaches an age where he asks way too many question, normal behavior for children of any kind, and one day makes way to many questions about the stranger in his dreams, the stranger that he remembers seeing in his fogy baby memories, the stranger prince Malleus sometimes talks about very very vaguely and why are they showing up on my dreams father?

And even then, Lilia does his best to keep unwanted emotions under the warps, because he doesn't need this child to know everything just yet, but he still takes his sweet time teeling his son about them

About the previous heir, who ranaway because of the pressure, about their old friends, who he loved dearly and to this day holds close to his heart; he tells him as much as he can, without telling him much

And with that, Silver's curiousity is satisfied! He knows who the kind and pretty stranger is, he knows he doesn't need to be afraid of them, because his father trusts them, and if his father trusts them then they must be a very good person. So yes, Silver's curiousity is satisfied

When one day Sebek Zigvolt comes along, Lilia doesn't really complain, ot is after all one more distraction from his aching heart and one more friend for his little child and his little prince, who's heart has been coming to a calm for the past few decades

So Lilia is happy when they all become very good friends, because this way Malleus' heart won't be hurting as much as Lilias' is, Silver won't ask as much questions about the kind stranger (who turned put to be the previous heir to the throne) and all in all Sebek is a very cute child, very loud but also very cute

Older!Draconia wants to smack Lilia into the next universe tho, because Vanrouge what the fcuk are you doing with 3 kids you still can't cook for shit you mf-

***

anyways this is everything and this is very long sorry for the whole testament

also do you think I can be ⚜️ anon if that one still isn't being used, bc this is not the first time i've brainrotted in your inbox and I don't think it will be the last (it happend back when you first started your black sheep au, I dont think it had an actual name back then???)

dw i sometimes forget about some of the black sheep au we have too

i. am going to go feral for older draconia who falls in love with lilia but runs away bc they don't want their life to be upturned for an arranged marriage.

and them living like live action maleficent!!!! and yk how silver is very similar to aurora? imagine that silver actually meets older draconia in the forest the same way aurora does in the live action <33

and some angst as always. imagine the first few nights that older draconia ran away. imagine lilia who stayed up late into the night, sobbing openly at the fact that the love of his life is gone. he begs and pleads to any god that will hear him to bring them back. he doesn't think he can live without them...

and older draconia is just a few feet away from their old home, sobbing alongside lilia as they beg and plead to any god for them to be reunited, in this life or the next.

[mysteroads]

MHA Midnight Musing 🌘🤔 on...

Tomura Shigaraki's quirk theories!

Alrighty, so... I am late to the online side of this fandom, but I'm going to toss my two cents in anyway. Been hearing the whole "red shoe" theory, claiming that Tomura was born quirkless and AFO gave Tomura Decay and... I Hate It.

(GIF doesn't have words, but if you're a MHA scene, you know what he's saying.)

I completely understand *why* that theory is out there, and it can make a very good fanfic! But... I truly and deeply despise the idea. Why? Because it:

Erases the tragedy of Tomura's whole situation and

Removes the parallels between Eri and Tomura.

It's a common human desire to want to blame someone for the bad things that happen. "The devil made me do it." "It's Trump's fault." "Let's go Brandon." ect. But blaming AFO completely misses out on the point of Tomura's character! Not going to dig deeper than that, because I assume you guys are smart enough to already know what I'm talking about. Also I'm not in college any more and I could write an essay on it, but I'm not going to inflict that on you.

(I could also write and essay on the COLOR SYMBOLISM, especially with those dang red shoes, but I'm not gonna. I want to, but I'm not going to.)

[mooifyourecows]

I love the humor of your fics! I've genuinely never read a story that does it's humor so well and even after multiple rereads I find myself laughing out loud reading Open Tab for example. What tips would you give for writers who are trying to incorporate humor into the story without it being corny?

Hey, sorry for the late reply, i've been really busy lately with the holidays, womp womp 🥲

My advice is: embrace the corny. Every joke I've made will someday (if not already) be corny to somebody. Some of them have become corny even to me. But that's okay. Corny is good. Corny is funny too. Life is too short to be embarrassed about your writing. Embrace corny.

And what makes you laugh the first time might not make you laugh the fifth time. That doesn't mean it wasn't funny the first four times, right? There are tons of jokes I read back on now and I'm like "oh GOD that's lame" but when i wrote it, and when people first read it, it was HILARIOUS. Humor just wears off a little the more you expect and remember it. I mean sure, there are always going to be those jokes that you think are ALWAYS funny, but they're probably not always funny to other people. They might not have been funny ever at all for some people.

All that matters is if YOU think it's funny. Make YOURSELF laugh and giggle and snort over your stupid, corny jokes. That's what I do. I write something, and if it makes me laugh, I know it'll make someone else laugh. Maybe only one other person, but hey, me and that person are the only people in the world with taste anyway so, bombs away. Don't play to an audience unless you're trying to sell something. Play to yourself and you'll attract like minded people and those are the BEST people to have as your readers. They'll love and support you more than your own dang mom.

And then of course the usual advice i give to people about writing comedy is to consume comedy. Watch some shows/movies or read some books/comics that you personally find hilarious. Really pay attention to why they're funny. If you have to, pause and really break a joke down. Even take notes if that's helpful. Basically treat it like you're about to write a deep dive essay on why you laughed. I know it might seem unfun, explaining the joke, but if you understand comedy, you'll have an easier time writing it. Pay attention to word usage, timing, physical gags, silence, etc. It's all important. But don't be afraid to play around! Comedy is like any art and is meant to be creative and unique to every individual. There are some things out there that people find funny that I can't even pretend to laugh at. And that's okay! It's about taste. Find what you like and try it on.

Personally, I like witty banter. I like humor that is a little surprising and over the top. I like when something is so dumb that you can't help but laugh about it. I like funny characters AND funny situations, but especially funny characters in funny situations. So these are the things I try to include in my writing.

But I also really enjoy contrast, so I like to pair humor with other stuff. Sweet romance, deep emotions, sad drama, etc. If you try to be funny and only funny all the time, you're gonna come off a little desperate and the jokes will fall flat. Ever watch a long running show and have to suffer watching it slowly get less and less funny as the seasons go by because all the nuance is gradually replaced with signature character traits recycled again and again and again until every character is a husk of their former selves? That's what it feels like when you focus too hard on making everything funny. You lose the soul of the writing.

Really pay attention to the things you find funny and try and emulate that same energy. Don't use the same jokes, of course, but try and capture the general vibe of the humor in a way that suits your story/writing style. A lot of the stuff I like to consume is witty banter/outlandish situations/crass euphemisms/puns so those are the things i like to put into my own stories. And hey, sometimes it doesn't work. I've written jokes that make me laugh until I cry but nobody seems to feel the same way and HEY, that's alright. I like it. And liking the stuff you're doing is the most important thing in the end.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful in some way. If you ever want any more advice, feel free to shoot me another ask! I'll try my best 👍

Good luck! Sending you good funny vibes for your adventures into comedic writing 🌈

[blueroan-equestrian]

What it could have been

Sirius and Remus raised Harry and snuffed out Voldemort earlier fluffy and supportive. Very introverted sub or maybe it’s a big little dynamic idk reader

Smut

I stumbled into the great hall where another study hall was being held. Students of all ages and houses were clustered around the hall. I searched the room looking for my friends. When a familiar voice hummed, “Hey gorgeous, why don’t you come sit with me?”

I rolled my eyes at Potter, “and why would I even consider that?”

Potter flashed a big smile, “Because… because we have a transfiguration essay together.”

I groaned, “We have a month to do that. I rather go study for the charm’s test we have tomorrow with my friends.”

“I can help with that. I’m good at charms and also need a good study buddy.” He continued.

I signed, “Alright, do you have the study guide? I lost mine.” I asked as I sat down with him.

His friend Hermione, handed hers to him, and he gave a triumphant smile, “yes.”

I rolled my eyes again, “Close enough,”  I placed the booklet between the two of us a began to read a loud. “Alright…. So….um the Impervious charm makes an object water repellent. So does that mean that we can use our wands like an umbrella?”

“Yep.” He hummed.

“And for objects is it also like an umbrella or does it just become waterproof like a rain coat?”

“Um… like an umbrella. I don’t think that part will be on the test though.”

“Yeah… I suppose… the anti-Alohomora charm… really on the nose that one…” we continued until we were finally were dismissed.

“(Y/n), I know that I get on your nerves but I was hoping that it’s in a good way cuz I would really like to go on a date with you.” The usually cocky and infamously popular boy stood up fidgeting and nervous.

I raised my eyebrows, “Potter… you have never shown me any kind of interest before. You once glued me to my chair in potions class!”

Harry seemed to some how turned a even deeper shade of red, “Yeah, I’ve done a lot stupid things… glued you to your chair, your shoes to the floor…liked other girls even, but that’s neither here nor there.”

“Well damn Potter, you just giving me whiplash! Dang… I don’t know… can I think about it?”

He nodded quickly, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, of-of course! Yeah! Take your time.”

…

I sat in bed with my book unable to concentrate. Knowing I had a test tomorrow didn’t help but Potter’s question was more prominent of a distraction. It was going to have to be dealt with now, if there was going to be any hope for sleep or even focusing for the test. So I headed out of my dorm and made my way to the Gryffindor tower. It wasn’t hard to get in the house or locate Harry who was laughing with his friends in his dorm. I know a violation but I was on a one track mindset kind of train so I made myself known, “Harry… I need to talk to you…” I say nervously.

Harry smiled confidently, “Of course darling.” He led me out of the house and to the astronomy tower, “Alright beautiful, what are we doing?”

“Why did you ask me out? Am I some kind of conquest? What is going on! (Pretty girls name) was gorgeous, I got why you dated her. But look at me, I look like a troll compared to her.” I asked clearly beginning to spiral.

Harry took ahold of me firmly, “Look at me, I think you are gorgeous. And you are over thinking this. I like you. We have good banter and I think chemistry too. I know I make you anxious because you will never sit with me the first time I ask. You are quiet until you aren’t and I love when you aren’t. You get really into the topic and you just explore it completely. I want to get to know that person. That’s the point of dating isn’t it?” He chuckles.

“This isn’t some cruel joke?” I asked nervously.

Harry leaned forward until he was a breath away, “Have I ever led a girl on? No will I ever? No. Girl’s hearts is one of the few things I take seriously. Why don’t we move up that date and go snag some sandwiches from the kitchen and come back here.”

I thought for a moment, “Alright… but nothing funny.”

He smirked, “I will be the perfect gentleman. Promise… unless you ask for more.” He wriggled his eye brows.

…

The date well it was actually good and thus calmed some of my anxiety. So I was able to go back to bed and actually sleep and do well on the test. After the test I waved over Harry, “Library during free period?” I asked.

Harry gave me a cheeky grin, “Sure thing, what are we doing?”

“Our project… what else do we have to get done in the library?” I asked missing his insinuation.

He raised  his eyebrows, “oh, yeah… that… sure. Meet you there.”

…

After some work, Harry stood up, “You are acting as if last night never happened! You were worried that I would use you but you go on a date with me, laugh and have a good time but now you act as if it wasn’t anything …”

I give him a look, and interrupt him “I was on a date with you during our free time. Potter… you said that you don’t play with girls hearts… well I don’t play with my education. If you want to cut it off here, I understand. But I’m not used to this dating thing, like this is me.”

He sat back down, “look at us here. Anxious messes… but can I get some flirting? Maybe a kiss?”

I rolled my eyes at his pouting but obliged him in a kiss, “There, now can we finish this before the next class?”

He smiled and swooped down to give me a quick peck and then agreed to finish our project for this sit down. We began to date and get to know each other’s kirks. A week before graduation, he asked me to meet his uncles. The ones who raised him and had quite the reputation. I found myself quite overwhelmed with the idea. “Don’t worry love, I’ve already told them that they need to be on their best behavior. So they won’t push you too hard or get too rowdy. It’ll be alright. Nice and quiet.”

…

Nice and quiet my butt! His uncle Sirius was so very ADHD you could spot it a mile away. He was very invasive and Harry had to remind him to back off. After we graduated we got a place of our own. It wasn’t anything outrageous but it was nice. Harry had quite a bit for him set aside. I sat in what would be our room on the floor holding an array of paint samples. Harry came in and sat on the floor next to me, “What are we looking at?”

“Paint samples. I can’t decide if I want a nice bright, happy color or more of a neutral color that will be easier to play off with the rest of the house. I don’t know… what do you think?”

“Pick the color that makes you feel happy.” He said kissing my cheek.

“Alright… sunrise yellow or sunset pink?”

“Why not an ombré?” He suggested.

“Yeah? I like that… I’m going to go get the paints!” I hummed hopping up and headed out.

…

Harry was always supportive of my little oddities and he always wanted to help when I was an anxious mess. I sat in bed waiting for Harry to get home from work, I had the day off but unfortunately he didn’t. So I spent the day taking it easy. But an hour before Harry got home I got myself together enough to go make him dinner. He came home and wrapped his arms around me, “Smells great, love.” He hummed.

“Glad you think so… how was your day?” I asked.

“Stressful… Malfoy is a pompous ass who loves to make an ass of himself!”

“Oh? What happened this time?” I hummed as I leaned back into him.

He squeezed me before going to sit down and letting me make him his plate, “You know, the usual bull shit.” He slumped down, “You know how I told you about that trial? … well you see the dick head couldn’t stop interrupting me during my interrogation.”

I chuckled as I set down our plates at the table, “Isn’t that apart of his job?”

He groaned, “Baby! You are supposed to be on my side!”

I giggled, “Oh, I’m sorry baby… let me start over. Hmm… that asshole! Is that better?”

He smiled, “Much. Now how was your day?”

I shrugged, “You weren’t here so I just napped most of the day… just got up to make you dinner really.”

He took a big bite of his food, “that sounds like a good day. Thank you for getting up to make me dinner, it tastes amazing! So I was wondering if you could get the last week of next month off because I was hoping we could go on a cruise with my uncles.”

I gave him a nervous smile shifting uncomfortably, “I’m sorry but I don’t know if that’s a good idea… Remus is lovely but Sirius makes me feel uncomfortable.”

Harry nodded, “I understand… but this cruise ship will be massive if he becomes too much then we can just find another area for a break.”

I raised my eyebrows, “your uncle has no ability to back off. Or boundaries.”

“Remus has promised to help get him to behave and Sirius himself said that pranks on or near you would be off the table as it’ll be an enclosed space and he knows none of us will be talking or socializing with him if he does anything to upset you. So you know… I know he’s a bit much but he won’t hurt you ever. I know he makes you anxious but he raised me and it would mean a lot if you could go on this family outing. Maybe come out of that introverted shell for just a little while. I love you as is but it would be nice if you ventured out every once in awhile.”

“He promised no pranks?” I asked tentatively.

“On you.” He corrected.

“Make it no pranks in general we both know how they go wrong, and it’s a deal.”

“Okay then he’ll have to make sure that you’re with him when he does them cuz he doesn’t know how to behave that much.”

“I will settle for just knowing the details. But okay.”

…

I sat on our bed with an empty suit case trying to think of what I needed but wasn’t really sure as I had never been on one of those things.

“Babe… oh?” Harry stopped in his tracks holding a few bathing suits in different cuts. “What’s happening here?”

“I don’t know what to pack.” I whispered.

He set down what he had and began to go through my things “Well we should have one jogger set as it’s supposed to be warm but it’s good to have something just in case. Like I said it’s going to be warm so plenty of shorts. Two jeans shorts, four comfy shorts. Some tank tops and t-shirts. Now you just need your toiletries, flip flops, to pick out your bathing suit and maybe some sunglasses. Oh!” He goes back to the dresser and grabs a handful of my underwear and plops them into the bag. “Nearly forgot to pack you some panties. That is probably needed.”

I blushed profusely, “Thanks babe… now what did you come in for?”

He smiled, “well I got some new bathing suits but I’m not sure what style I want. What do you think?”

I looked over the options, “I like the shorts and the cropped shorts.”

“Great, I will return the others. So excited!”

…

The day came when we were to head to the cruise and I had on a nice sun dress, a sun hat with sunglasses and white shoes. Harry matched his shirt to my dress and we met his uncles at the boarding area. “(Y/n), it’s good to see you.” Remus smiled as he extended his arms.

“You too… Sirius.” I acknowledge as I give Remus a hug.

“(Y/n)… so we all ready?” Sirius boomed.

We boarded the ship and headed to our conjoining rooms. The room was very nice and I couldn’t say it wasn’t comfortable, which helped my anxiety. I sat on the edge of the bed as Harry placed our clothes in the dresser. “This might be nice.” I hummed.

Harry looked over his shoulder with a smile, “Yeah? I hope so too. I know it’s not easy for you but I’ve been looking forward to this and I know that you get nervous about these things. So you feeling good?”

“Yeah… you know how I get. But right now I feel like I did when we first started dating.”

“Nervous but focused?” He chuckled.

“Yep… you know me well. So now what?”

“In an hour we’ll need to go to orientation and then we’ll have time to explore the ship.”

I nodded, “Okay so we have some time?”

He shrugged as he finished up and came to sit with me, “Yep, do you want to see if Remus and Sirius want to go over the itinerary?”

I nodded quickly and almost on cue his uncles entered the room through the adjoining room door. “You kids decent?” Sirius laughed.

I turned red while Harry simply threw an arm around me and squeezed, “Yeah, just got settled in and were about to go ask you to join us in planning the day.”

Remus nodded, “That’s a good idea, we have orientation today, then we should figure out where things are. Then stop for lunch. After lunch I already signed us up for an art class. Then some free time we could use to finish exploring the ship. Dinner and then we can stop by the theater. Today is mostly just traveling but tomorrow the good stuff will start.”

“Sounds like you already had that planned out.” Harry laughed.

“Of course, though I’m surprised (y/n) hasn’t already planned it.”

“It’s not my trip to plan and luckily Remus is like me in planning.” I chuckled nervously.

Sirius rolled his eyes, “Neither one of you know how to relax.”

“Planning is relaxing.” Remus and I corrected.

Harry laughed and kissed my shoulder, “Well I appreciate it. But I think it’s time to head out.”

…

The day was easy and actually relaxing. When we got back I started to strip down to get ready for bed. Harry came up behind me and pulled me into his arms. “Come on baby get on the bed, I’m hungry.” I leaned back against him, “No need for clothes.”

I hummed and crawled up the bed and flopped down on the bed as asked with my legs spread for him. He hummed contentedly as he crawled up and laid between my legs. He kissed up my thighs until he reached my core. He dropped a kiss before he licked my slit and then delving into my core. He allowed me to push up my hips and ride his mouth. I let out a loud whine and he hummed contently. He swirled his tongue as he reached up with one hand to take ahold of my breast and played with them as his other hand grasped my thigh and held me close. I wriggled in ecstasy as he worked me enthusiastically, only pulling away once I had reached completion and came down from my high. The orgasms he gives me are always so intense. He crawled up my limp body kissing my skin as he went. He hovers above me and whispers, “princess, may I please use your body? I want to feel good too.”

I simply nodded and spread my legs more for him. He quickly stripped down before returning above me. He kissed me deeply before delving into my already overly sensitive pussy. I whine and he kisses me. “Are you comfortable pretty girl?”

“Yes… just sensitive… I am fine don’t worry.”

Harry nodded before beginning to find a rhythm he liked. He lowered his head beginning to nibble at my neck as he fucked into me. Moaning I try to meet his thrusts and help him chase his high but he pinned down my hips and growled, “Stay still my love, don’t want you to over exert yourself.”

I whimpered in pleasure at his display of dominance and came on his cock. He smirked before throwing his own head back and cumming loudly into me. He collapsed on top of me, remaining inside of me, “That was amazing baby. Always so good baby… want me to go start us a shower?”

I nodded and he rolled off me trotting off to the bathroom to start the shower before popping his head out, “it’s warm and ready love.”

I scurried over and we hopped under the shower of comforting warm water as we held onto each other savoring each moment. But we had to break apart and clean ourselves up before going up to bed to be able to get up in the morning. We really started bonding with his family on this trip.

[kithtaehyung]

I JUST this year found out about 3tan and I have GOT to say that seriously, I LLLLLOOOOOOVEE your works, like 3tan was the first one I started but the first chapter had me hooked and by the second chapter I was DEVOOOTEDDDD TO YOUR WRITING, like it all feels very organic, I can immerse myself so easily in this story and I loooooveee the way you write Every. Single. Personality. In this work like, they make sense, shit I love Jimin being such a real one, I love how I can feel the anxiety and tranquility after every intrusive thought and every reassurance, it's all very guttingly beautiful, I feel like crying cause it's such a great work, I had to remind myself to stop for a couple hours cause I was reading at work and by the time I read it at home I'd started pulling all nighters without even noticing cause it's just so gooooood. I was feeling so elated cause I hadn't felt this avid about a story in so long and had mostly just read one-shots and by the time I finished I just needed to read every work of yours and oºoºh my god, I'm still not done but seriously, I wish I had a book cabinet with a podium of favourite amazing writers and works cause yours would easily be within the top 3, little light shining on it and glitter glittering around it, the holy music in the background, the whole works. Seriously thank you so much for your work, I'm thaaaankful for finding your work because even at the dialogue and internal thoughts, they all clicked so good. I could just go on and on about this (I need a whole essay on this or easily a rant channel or smn idk) because I love it so much but I'm not even writing this right and I'm so hype and I hope your food always taste grate, your blankets always feel like safety, your mornings always feel great, your coffee always taste good and warm, your friends always make you feel loved, your favorite movies/series/books/works are always within reach for you and I hope you feel loved by the ones you love every second. Holy shittt thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you so muuuuuuch ✨✨✨✨✨

AHHHH when i tell you the absolute smile i got on my face after reading this, and then the way it got even wider the more i kept reading! organic writing is literally what i work extra hard for, so this made me very, very at peace.

these stories are meant to be escapes from everyday life. worlds you can run away to whenever you need. i'm glad you ended up finding them! (jimin is such a real one omfg)

you can cry! i cry while writing these all the dang time hahaha it's only natural if you are moved enough. totally okay and i will be there to give you tissues. gosh, i remember those times where i lost so much sleep just from being sucked into a fic or book. good times spent!

I was feeling so elated cause I hadn't felt this avid about a story in so long and had mostly just read one-shots and by the time I finished I just needed to read every work of yours and oºoºh my god, I'm still not done but seriously, I wish I had a book cabinet with a podium of favourite amazing writers and works cause yours would easily be within the top 3, little light shining on it and glitter glittering around it, the holy music in the background, the whole works.

THIS PART MADE ME SOBBBB oh my goodness you are so sweet and i wish you the best things in life for years and years! what an incredible compliment to receive as a creator. super honored.

we're having fun on the 3tan discord if you wanna join! we're all there to bond over all things 3tan and other similar interests :D it's super fun and chill.

damn i.. i am just so thankful. this was a thoughtful message and i am gonna sleep so peacefully. thank you again!

[sketchnskribbles]

...

h i

I think that a lot of the time, people actually forget the fact that the timeline that Rex came from was, and still technically is the original timeline.

Rex is the original Emmet , and was what Emmet was supposed to and going to turn into, had it not been for the intervention of his future self.

I mean, when Rex was being back-to-the-futured, he himself said that the reason why Emmet would turn out better than him was because he intervened and stopped him from being sent to Undar, and staying trapped there for y e a r s.

And i think that makes it all the more heart wrenching, because the reason Rex eventually tosses Emmet into Undar is when they argued and Emmet said he loved his friends and would never abandon them.

Rex was obviously reminded about how trusting and loyal he used to be to his 'friends', and that reminder of how that trust he had in them was why he was in Undar for years, just, ends up making him angry enough to make his past self go through what he wanted to avoid.

And I want to think about how desperate he was, waiting in Undar for his friends to finally save him, how he hung on to that fragile hope for years before finally giving up, resulting in him changing everything about himself that made him Emmet.

It's just sad to think about Emmet developing that toxic masculine personality because of the way people treated him, and not just the people in apocalypseburg, but especially the new 'friends' he had, the closest people in his life, trying to stop his little personality quirks.

But I think that while Emmet has the potential of turning out like Rex, a being full of hatred and anger. Rex also has the potential of having a redemption arc.

I don't want him to end up like Emmet again, because that would be unrealistic. But he could develop better coping mechanisms, and finally be able to work through his trauma and mess of emotions that has been building up over the years, left unchecked.

I dunno, I just want people to acknowledge the fact that Rex is technically the original Emmet, if anything Emmet is the alternate timeline.

:)

(Oh wait that looks creepy-)

OMG, I DID NOT EXPECT A FULL ON ESSAY ON REX IN MY INBOX BUT DANG AM I HAPPY 😆

I honestly very much agree with everything here. And he ABSOLUTELY deserves a redemption arc!

I would ask if youve read my fic but I think I know who this is, which means you already do XD lmao

So lovely to hear from you! I’m sorry I don’t have much to add right now… my mind is completely fried from my schooling and work. I go directly from one to the other most days… not fun lol

Thank you for having the courage to make contact! I know it was probably a hard thing to do💙

[fictional-men-have-my-heart]

Since I'm well out of practice of writing fics or anything other than essays and papers for classes, I'm gonna try a bullet point post per day instead with fic/ writing drabble ideas for the month of December. Since it's still the 1st where I'm at, we'll start now.

• Don't imagine discovering that out of the 141, Soap and Gaz are the only ones who have made Christmas cookies.

• You convince them to make some with you for the "holiday spirit", plus they get cookies so win win right?

• Until Soap and Gaz get into a bit of a competition, and progressively try to outdo each other.

• Price watches in amusement as they fight over cookie cutters and sprinkles, sipping on a glass of eggnog that you totally didn't see him pouring an extra shot into.

• It's all fun and games until Soap slaps a powdered sugar covered hand on Gaz's back.

• Gaz retaliates by dusting his hands over the top of Soap's head.

• There's a moment of silence as they look at each other, wicked grins shared as the powdered sugar starts flying.

• Price quickly removes himself from the range of fire, but Ghost isn't so quick.

• Suddenly, his mask is almost entirely white. Soap and Gaz freeze, and a small cloud puffs off Ghost as he exhales, slowly turning toward them.

• Soap and Gaz, now running around the small kitchen trying to dodge their lieutenant, who has the bag of powdered sugar now, and deadly accuracy to boot.

• Soap, Gaz and Ghost helping clean up the mess they'd made, as it now almost looks like it snowed indoors.

• The cookies are messily decorated, but you swear Price has a proud dad smile as the team gathers to enjoy their work.

• Muffled muching the only sound except the quiet Christmas music on the portable radio.

(I know these may not fit into canon at all, but dang if it wouldn't be a cute idea. Making cookies is a tradition with my family, and it's very rare to go a year without powdered sugar flying at least once in the evening.)